As the Poems Go
by dancinginthesunlight
Summary: All relationships start somewhere. For Nico and Will, it happens slowly. Another take on the three days in the infirmary. BOO SPOILERS. T for language. A Solangelo beginning.


_This started out as fluff but then angst happened oops._

**As the Poems Go**

"Don't even think about it."

Nico pauses with one hand on the doorknob and swears under his breath.

"It's Thursday," Will continues. "I finally got Jason to drag you in here _yesterday_."

"Yeah, yeah," Nico says. "I'm _fine_, Solace."

"You're not fine, and you're going to sit down on your bed and listen to the doctor for five—"

"You do know you're not a _real_ doctor, right? You're—what, sixteen?"

"Fifteen," Will says, and Nico ignores the butterflies that suddenly fill his stomach. There's no reason that finding out they're only a year apart in age should make him feel—whatever this is. "And anyway, I'm in charge here, so sit down or I'll ask Chiron for a straitjacket."

At _that_, Nico turns around, expecting to catch Will smiling.

He's not.

Nico rolls his eyes, crosses the distance back to the bed, and throws himself down onto it with an exasperated sigh.

"Yes," Will comments, and Nico doesn't miss the sarcasm behind his voice, "Be as dramatic as you can about it. That's _totally_ going to convince me that you're not going to run off and try to shadow travel to Iceland at the first chance you get."

"Iceland?"

Will ignores him and picks up his notes from the desk. "How do you feel?"

"_Fine_," Nico grumbles.

Will marks something on the clipboard. "Any pain? Nausea? Dizziness?"

"No."

"Have you tried shadow traveling since the war?"

"_No_."

"How are you sleeping?"

"Fine."

"Eating?"

"Fine."

Will raises his eyebrows, but it's not credulous so much as concerned, which surprises Nico as much as the words Will says next: "And the truth?"

* * *

He decides that glasses work for Jason.

"So. You told Percy."

"Not talking about it," Nico snaps, turning back to the tablet computer Rachel Dare let him borrow to look up furniture prices for his cabin.

"But—"

"Jason. I know you want to be a good friend and all, but I don't want to talk about it."

"Right, but he told me—"

"You do know that the point of being _over it_ is that I don't _care_ anymore, right?" And he knows that's not completely true, but he's not about to tell Jason that.

"Fine," Jason says, and even manages to shut up for a full thirty seconds. Then he grins wickedly. "That healer kid is pretty cute, huh?"

Nico throws a pillow at his head.

* * *

"What are you writing?" Nico asks, and Will jumps so hard he nearly knocks over the table he's sitting at.

"Holy Hera," Will whispers, leaning his head back to look up at the ceiling. "I thought you were asleep."

"I was hungry," he says. "This is the kitchen."

"Haven't seen you in here the whole time you've been here." It's not accusatory, exactly, just a statement of fact, like Will is making a mental note to add to Nico's file later: _Patient spent 36 hours without craving cold pizza._

Nico exhales, letting his shoulders fall. He closes his eyes. "It's been like this since I left on the quest," he says. He doesn't know what it is about walking in on Will scribbling in a notebook in the middle of the night that makes him put down the pretenses and actually say something _honest_ without burying it six feet deep in sarcasm first, but there it is. "I just don't get hungry as often."

He shrugs like it's no big deal, like he isn't annoyed that he used to be able to polish off three happy meals in an hour and now can't even look at a burger without feeling nauseated, like it doesn't bother him that he can feel his ribs through the fabric of his T-shirt.

Will nods slowly. "We'll work on that."

_We._ The word sends a jolt of – _something_ into his stomach.

Then he meets Will's gaze, and Will is staring at him with piercing blue eyes and Nico needs to look away look away look away because if he doesn't Will is going to catch on to everything Nico feels about him because _why _else would he be staring and then he'll be so humiliated he'll have to shadow travel to the underworld for a few thousand years.

"You never answered my question," Nico says finally. "What's in the notebook?"

Will glances down, breaking their eye contact – _thank gods_ – and shuts the book. "Nothing. Homework."

"You are the worst liar I have ever met. It's August."

Will is silent for a while, so long that Nico wonders whether he's somehow struck a nerve.

"What, is it like a diary or something? '_Dear Diary, Today I only got to hold _four_ demigods in the infirmary against their will. I'm really slacking. Need to go after at least six tomorrow—'_"

"It's poetry," Will mutters.

"Then why the hell are you so secretive about it?" Nico doesn't know where the outburst comes from. He of all people knows not to pry into other people's secrets. "You're a son of _Apollo_. Isn't poetry, like, part of the deal?"

"You've _heard_ my dad's poetry, right?" Will asks like it's a joke, but the unsaid fact that Apollo is currently missing in action lingers.

"So what you're saying is that your haikus aren't quite up to par."

Will looks like he's going to argue, but then he's quiet. "None of my siblings write poetry. Song lyrics, sometimes, but that's it. Except…" he pauses for so long that Nico almost wonders whether he's supposed to respond to that – his interpersonal skills have never been great – but then he continues, "Lee used to."

The pain in Will's eyes makes him look so _broken_ that Nico wants to wrap his arms around Will and shield him from the world and the battles that kill older siblings.

Before he knows what he's doing – before he can _stop_ _himself_ – he puts a hand over Will's hand. Will looks up. Meets his eyes.

He should pull his hand away. Play it off like a mistake. Make a comment about how Will's habit of tapping his fingers against the table is annoying as all get out.

He should not stand there with his hand on Will's like personal space means _nothing_ to him anymore.

"If you want to talk about it… I mean, I know what it's—Bianca, my sister…" Godsdamn it, he sounds like a raving idiot. _You have really nice eyes and now my hand is on your hand and I'm having trouble speaking coherently. Let me be a little more lame, please._

"Thanks," Will whispers, which would've been enough to fill Nico's stomach with skeletal butterflies on its own, but then Will turns his hand over so that their fingers are brushing and they're almost _holding hands_ and then he squeezes Nico's fingers so gently it makes Nico's breath catch.

"So," Nico says, as though Will isn't _holding his hand_ and causing all his nerve endings to fire, "Are you any good?"

It takes Will a moment to realize that Nico is talking about his poetry – which is a stupid thing for him to talk about anyway since he knows next to nothing about _literature_ – but then Nico sees Will's expression change as the words click in his head.

"Probably not," Will says, but Nico is the king of self-deprecation and can spot a lie when he sees one.

"You're still the worst liar I've ever met. You're probably actually amazing at it."

Then Will's hand disappears from under his and he stands abruptly, rushing out of the kitchen like Nico just threatened to murder him or something.

_Shit, _Nico thinks. Will had probably only been holding his hand in a friendly, we've-both-had-older-siblings-die kind of way and Nico had read the whole thing wrong and now Will knew he was… _into guys_… and he was never going to want to see him again—

And then Will was back, a worn, leather-bound book clutched in his hand.

"What—"

"You want to read real poetry," he says, "You can read some that's _actually_ good."

* * *

_Take all my loves, my love, yea, take them all_…

Gods, this was awful. Nico thumbs to the next page.

"Oh, good, you're up."

Nico slams the book shut and tries to shove it under his pillow, but Reyna catches his wrist before he can.

"What's this?"

"Uh," he hesitates, "Will gave it to me."

Reyna flips the cover open and scans the first page. "He gave you a book of poetry?"

"It's not like that." He's not exactly sure what he's protesting.

"Whatever you say."

"You're just as bad as Jason." He sees a hint of sadness cross her face, so he tacks on a "Sorry," to the end of his statement. After all they've been through together, he doesn't need to shove her former best friend in her face.

She doesn't say anything, just flips the book open to a random page. "'_Come, my Celia, let us prove / While we can, the sports of love_.' Gods, that doesn't even rhyme."

"Tell me about it."

"Anyway," Reyna says. "I came to say goodbye."

"You're leaving?" he didn't know he'd be this upset to see her go back to Camp Jupiter, but the feeling of sadness that washes over him isn't entirely unexpected.

"I'll be back in New York for Thanksgiving," she says. "Rachel Dare 'can't put up with her family on her own' or something."

"So I'll see you then."

"And you're welcome at Camp Jupiter anytime. Seriously, Nico, we never would have defeated Gaea without you. And… you're one of my best friends."

He hugs her for the second time in two days – more physical contact than he's ever had with anyone before, save maybe Hazel – and finds that it's not intolerable.

"And, uh," she says, "You should maybe clear up whatever's going on with you and Solace."

"_What?_"

"Nico," Reyna says plainly. "He gave you a book of love poems."

"It doesn't mean—"

"Well, no, not if you sit here in denial of things that are right under your nose, it doesn't."

"_Rey. Na._" He breaks her name into two words and very nearly throws the book at her.

"I'm just saying," she says, standing up. "I'll see you around, kid. Iris Message me sometime."

* * *

Reyna's words play through his mind over the course of the next few hours, so much so that by the next time Will checks in on him unnecessarily for some medical purpose that's probably actually just code for 'being annoying,' he gets up the courage to ask, "Who's your favorite?"

"Huh?" Will asks, all but shoving a thermometer into Nico's mouth.

Nico glares at him and holds up the poetry book. Then he spits the thermometer out.

"I don't have a fever. Relax."

"I'll relax when you stop trying to overexert yourself. I saw you and Grace arm-wrestling earlier."

"I am not _overexerting _myself."

"Can you keep this under your tongue, please?" Will snaps, poking the thermometer again.

"I don't have a—"

_Fever_. The next word is _fever_. But then Will reaches for the back of his head, probably to keep him from leaning away from the godsdamn thermometer, and Nico can't speak.

They sit there for a beat, until pulls the thermometer out with his hand and says sharply, "Please stop touching me."

Will pulls his hand away with a quick, "Sorry."

Nico, for his part, is finally thankful to have a reason to keep his mouth shut, so he waits while the thermometer _beep-beep-beep_s its way up and then pulls it out.

"98.6," he reads, flashing the screen at Will so the jerk doesn't make him redo it. "Happy?"

Will glances down at his hands, looking anything _but_ happy. _Shit._ How did Nico manage to screw _this_ up, too? He might not be a social butterfly, but he knows when he needs to say something.

"Uh, Will? Are you—are you okay?"

"I need to tell you something," Will says.

"Okay?"

"I um—it's not really a big deal, it's just you're here for the next few days" – under duress, Nico wants to add, but Will's tone is serious – "And you might… you might hear some things from other people. About me."

Gods, the look on his face right now is so _pained_.

"And. Um. I'm okay with it but I—I mean, I get it if you're not—"

"Will, what the fuck are you talking about?"

Will squeezes his eyes shut. "I'm bisexual."

Oh. _Oh._

In the split second of surprise that follows, Nico almost responds, _Me too_, but then he regains control of his thought process and looks up at Will. Will, who evidently doesn't know a thing about Nico's sexual preferences, given the anxiety he's displaying at the idea of Nico knowing this about him.

But then he replays his conversation with Will: Will's hand on his head. _Stop touching me_. _Sorry._

Shit. Will probably thinks he's some kind of homophobic, can't-let-another-guy-touch-me-or-people-might-think-I'm-gay, straight kid. The idea is so off the mark it's almost laughable, but then again, Will doesn't know that.

"So?" Nico asks, "What does that have to do with anything?"

It's not until after he's said the words that he realizes that they're what he's always wanted to hear. Jason is one of his best friends (it's still weird, considering people his _friends_, plural), but even he brings up Nico's _interest in guys_ more than strictly necessary. And Nico knows Jason means well, but _gods_, for once he'd like to have a conversation with the guy without Croatia lurking in the background.

Nico thinks he sees the hint of a smile cross Will's face. "It doesn't," he says, responding to Nico's question. "I just… I thought you should know."

"I hate to break it to you, Solace, but I'm going to be just as pissed off about being trapped here whether you're hitting on _all_ the Aphrodite kids who come in here or just the girls."

"I'm not—" Will stops himself. "Whatever. I just… People like to talk and I'd rather you found out on my terms."

"Right," Nico says, because he doesn't think Will would appreciate it if he asked why this came up _after_ Will had steadied Nico's head with his hand.

Then Will stands up, taking the thermometer and an alcohol wipe with him. He takes a few steps before turning back.

"Bukowski," he says.

"What?"

"You asked earlier about my favorite poet. Bukowski."

* * *

_He knows this is a dream because it begins with Jason – sans glasses – reciting a Charles Bukowski poem in Diocletian's Palace in Croatia, but unlike his normal dreams this time Nico can't force himself to snap out of it and take control of his actions._

it was just a little while ago

almost dawn

blackbirds on a telephone wire

waiting

_ Cupid arrives and Nico wants to draw his sword but he's wearing the idiotically bright orange standard-issue Camp Half Blood infirmary pajamas he went to bed in and his sword is nowhere to be found._

as I eat yesterday's

forgotten sandwich

at 6 a.m.

on a quiet Sunday morning

_And then Percy shows up and relieves Jason of the poetry reciting duties while Nico feels the ground crumble beneath his feet and he's falling down down down—_

one shoe in the corner

standing upright

the other laying on its

side

_And he's in Tartarus with air and water burning his lungs and the world is on fire and he's stumbling alone and lost and he's going to die down here, a child of the Underworld who had been promised a room in a palace by his father was going to die in Tartarus where his soul would be trapped breathing in fire forever and maybe this is what he deserves anyway and if he could just give up and—_

yes, some lives were made to be

wasted.

* * *

"Nico! Nico!"

He bolts upright in bed – bed. Infirmary. Safe.

He squeezes his eyes shut and tries to stop hyperventilating. "What…?"

"You were screaming," Will says, looking concerned. "What did you—"

"Not a demigod dream," Nico assures him. "Sorry for waking you."

_Gods. _There was no way this situation could be any more embarrassing.

"Don't worry about it. What were you dreaming about, anyway?"

"It's nothing."

"Come on. I've seen some pretty scary things too, you know. Comes with the demigod territory. It helps to talk about it."

"I don't want to talk about it."

"But—"

"I said I don't want to talk about it!"

Will rolls his eyes. "Okay, fine, you don't need to have such a brooding, woe-is-me-I'm-such-a-loner attitude all the time."

Maybe it's the late hour. Maybe it's the fact that his heart rate still hasn't slowed to normal in the few minutes since waking up.

Whatever it is, Will's words set his blood boiling.

"_Brooding_," he says. "You think I'm _brooding_."

"Nico—"

"My mother was murdered when I was a kid. By Zeus, who I'm now supposed to hero-worship like he's the greatest immortal to ever grace Mount Olympus. Then I missed out on seven _fucking_ decades of existence, only to be thrown straight into the twenty-first century at a boarding school where I got shoved into lockers, oh, about once every five minutes."

He can feel the shadows at the corners of the room start to grow bigger, but he can't really bring himself to care.

"Then I find out that my dad's actually some immortal Greek god, who conveniently wanted nothing to do with me – he never even _claimed_ me. Do you understand what that's like?" he doesn't wait for a response. "Thalia, Percy, and Bianca were _all_ going to turn sixteen ahead of me. There was no _fucking_ way I was _ever_ going to be the Child of the Prophecy. But I got to get up close and personal with the floor of the Hermes cabin, which mostly meant Travis Stoll stepping on me on his way to the bathroom in the middle of the night.

"But it was all okay," he laughs humorlessly. "Because Bianca was going on a quest, and then she was going to come back and even if we were crammed in with the Hermes kids at least we'd be together. And at least the kids here didn't beat me up for fun."

"Nico," Will tries again, but he just holds up a hand to stop him.

"And then Bianca died. And you know how I found out who my dad was? I summoned an army of skeletons. _Everything_ I can do with my powers is the kind of stuff that _terrifies_ other people. So yeah, maybe people would have been willing to be my friend, once upon a time. But after they'd seen me, I don't know, summon a zombie army or—let someone die in a catapult – what then? And I can't even blame them for being afraid because that's part of the territory of being a kid of Hades. Death is _literally_ the most terrifying thing most people ever face and I _embody_ it. I turned thirteen in the _Underworld_.

"And if that wasn't enough, I walked through _Tartarus_ alone. Literally Hell itself," his voice breaks, but he can't stop now. "And one of the _great_ powers I inherited was the ability to see" –he falters, breath shaking— "to see Tartarus the way the monsters within it do."

He glances up, meeting Will's eyes for the first time – they're wide with shock – and says as clearly as he can, "I saw what was really there, Will. All of it."

And then it's like the floodgates have opened, and he's sitting there _crying _in front of Will, who probably thinks he's a godsdamn _crybaby_ or something—

He hasn't even told Will about _half_ of the things he's experienced and he's already a mess.

"Hey. Hey. Shhh. Nico," Will's voice is soothing. He takes a few steps closer, hesitantly, as though wondering whether Nico might explode. It's not an unreasonable presumption; the shadows in the room are looming larger than they should. Nico's control has gotten good enough that he doesn't _crack open the earth_ when he gets angry anymore, but a little – what had Will called it? Underworld-y stuff? – sometimes slips through anyway.

"I'm sorry," Will whispers. His voice is soft, but stable. It's not much, but it's there for Nico to grab onto if he needs.

No one has comforted him like this since… well, since Bianca.

Then again, no one's seen him cry since Bianca either.

* * *

"Good morning!"

Nico jerks awake, sitting up in bed with a start. He rubs at his eyes, checks his watch. "What the _fuck_, Will?"

"Someone's not a morning person."

"That's because it's not fucking morning," Nico groans, burying his face back in his pillow. "The sun isn't even up yet."

"Exactly," Will says, excitement dripping from his voice. Nico has a feeling he's not going to like this idea. "Come on."

It's around now that Nico starts to remember the _last_ time he spoke to Will: last night, when he'd been reduced to a pathetic puddle of tears like a _child_. But Will isn't acting like anything out of the usual happened.

He feels an inexplicable need to apologize – _I'm sorry for yelling at you and probably scaring you half to death?_ – but it's too early to formulate sentences and the overwhelming desire to punch Will in the face is consuming most of his mental energy.

"Nico," Will says. "_Please._"

It's more of a demand than a question, but something in Will's voice makes Nico sit up with a groan and swing his feet over to the floor.

"You know for someone who's so convinced I need to rest, you're doing a pretty good job of—"

"Come on," Will says, grabbing Nico's wrist and tugging him out of bed.

"Don't touch me." Nico says it on instinct; out of habit more than anything else, but Will relinquishes his grip and Nico finds himself missing the contact.

That's weird. He blames the fact that it's only like five in the morning. But Will is already out the door and halfway down the hall.

"Well?" he asks. "You coming?"

"I haven't even brushed my teeth yet."

Will rolls his eyes. "Fine. _Hurry up_."

Eventually he follows Will to a closet in the back corner of the infirmary (there's probably a pun in there somewhere, walking into a closet with a not-straight guy who's maybe kind of a little bit attractive, but it's too early for humor) and watches as Will opens a trapdoor in the ceiling and pulls down a latter. The edge of his shirt rides up a few inches as he stretches to reach the latch – godsdamn tall people – and Nico sees an expanse of what look like flat abs, which is probably one of the most unfair things about Will Solace, right up there with his height.

Nico assumes they'll end up in an attic. He doesn't expect to find himself on the roof, with the predawn chill seeping into his bones.

"I wanted to talk," Will says.

"On the roof."

"Yeah. So you can—" he stops, and Nico thinks Will might _actually _be blushing. "You know. Sunrise. It's…"

"Poetic?" Nico fills in, then wishes he hadn't said anything. He's not sure how to categorize this interaction – friendly? More? – and it leaves him feeling uncertain.

Will meets his gaze, blue on brown, and smiles a little. "For lack of a better word."

"I'm serious, Solace," Nico says, "If I don't get caffeine in the next three minutes I'm going to—"

"I think you should see a therapist."

Nico stops. Replays the words. Processes.

"You—_what?_"

"A therapist," Will says. "I know you've been here three days and can technically leave whenever you want, but… You might be okay physically, but mentally—"

"Will, this entire _camp_ is screwed up," Nico says. "I'm not—I don't need to see a shrink."

"You need to see someone! For fuck's sake, Nico, how long have you kept all that stuff you told me last night bottled up inside?"

"And you expect me to tell all that to a therapist. '_My relationship with my dad? Well, he's the immortal god of the Underworld, so we don't really have much time for father-son bonding—'_"

"I see one," Will says softly. "On Long Island, like twenty minutes from here. She's technically my half-sister, which is kind of weird, but… I can give you the name, if you want."

"_You_ see a therapist?"

"Yeah. Mostly grief counseling, but other stuff too." His voice turns serious. "It helps."

"I don't—"

"You need someone to talk to. And I can't always be that person for you—I can listen to you, Nico, and try to understand, and be there for you, but I'm" – his voice breaks – "I'm _fifteen_. I heal people by praying to _my dad_ and lately… Well. He's been M.I.A. and I've been stuck figuring stuff out on my own. And I can handle the First Aid, but I don't know how to handle this!"

Will looks like he's on the verge of tears and Nico feels an unexplainable urge to wrap his arms around him and tell him everything will be okay. Which is ridiculous.

"I want to help you," Will says, closing his eyes. "But I don't know how."

Nico doesn't know how to respond, so he just nods at the horizon.

"Look," he says, reaching for Will's hand. "Sunrise."

* * *

as the poems go into the thousands you  
realize that you've created very  
little.

it comes down to the rain, the sunlight,  
the traffic, the nights and the days of the  
years, the faces.  
leaving this will be easier than living  
it, typing one more line now as  
a man plays a piano through the radio,  
the best writers have said very  
little  
and the worst,  
far too much.  
~Charles Bukowski

* * *

_A/N: Will Solace is a poet and nothing can convince me otherwise. Nico needs to talk to a professional and nothing can convince me otherwise. These two take approximately 34235646 years to get together and nothing can convince me otherwise (but then it's cute as hell when they do)._

_In all seriousness, I have so many mixed emotions about Solangelo and BoO in general so feel free to Review or PM me if you also have emotions and want to share._

_Poems I quoted:_

"_Take all my loves…" = Sonnet 40, Shakespeare_

"_Song: to Celia" = Ben Jonson, which did rhyme once upon a time_

"_it was just a little while ago" = Charles Bukowski_

"_As the Poems Go" = Charles Bukowski_


End file.
